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Tim Harford

Senior Columnist

Tim Harford writes the Undercover Economist column, and was previously an economics leader writer for the FT. He first joined the newspaper as Peter Martin Fellow in 2003.

Tim is the author of ten books, including the million-selling The Undercover Economist and most recently How To Make The World Add Up and The Truth Detective. He hosts the Cautionary Tales podcast and presents More or Less on BBC Radio.

Tim is the winner of the Royal Statistical Society award for journalistic excellence, the Wincott Prize, the Bastiat Prize, the Rybczynski Prize and several other awards. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He was made an OBE in the 2019 new year honours list “for services to improving economic understanding”.

Email Tim Harford @TimHarford  on X.com (link opens in a new browser window)
  • Wednesday, 6 May, 2026
    Life & Arts
    Conned by a chatbot

    Like tricksters, LLMs have perfected the art of plausibility

    Tim Harford
    3 hours ago
    An illustration shows a runner in sportswear looking at a smartphone, with a speech bubble arrow pointing left as he walks near the edge of a cliff.
  • Wednesday, 29 April, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    Rage in the age of X

    It feels like politics is more fraught today — is it?

    Tim Harford
    Blue “Post” button struck by a red boxing glove against a green background.
  • Wednesday, 22 April, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    Science in the shadow of the Third Reich

    In postwar West Germany, the link between cigarettes and cancer was ignored — with real and deadly effects

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of a black boot crushing an open pack of cigarettes on a green background
  • Wednesday, 15 April, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    Betting on risk changes the world

    Prediction markets are the latest example of a disruptive new industry smacking into problems incumbents have long understood

    Tim Harford
    A dartboard with clustered darts at the bullseye, while a banknote at the edge is struck off-target.
  • Wednesday, 8 April, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    When persistence prevails

    After 593 monthly editions, a legend of role-playing games magazines has finally called it a day

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of a cracked, heart-shaped stone with a hammer and chisel lying beside it on a green background.
  • Wednesday, 1 April, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    Lessons from your petrol pump

    As consumers, sharp price increases are unwanted. But they send an essential signal 

    Tim Harford
    Medical monitor displaying a green dollar sign over a heartbeat trace on a red background
  • Wednesday, 25 March, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    A $30mn lesson in patience

    What we can learn from ‘the worst contract in sports history’

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of a baseball glove holding a bundle of cash on a yellow background.
  • Wednesday, 18 March, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    How can we tell good AI from bad?

    More lessons from the jagged frontiers of new technology

    Tim Harford
    A magnifying glass hovers over lines of computer code on a screen, highlighting a cracked circular symbol
  • Wednesday, 11 March, 2026
    Life & Arts
    The usefulness of useless knowledge

    Politicians aren’t the best judges of the merits of scientific research

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of a rose placed in a test tube rack filled with blue liquid against a pink background
  • Wednesday, 4 March, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    What if AI just makes us work harder?

    Employees have reported increased momentum, but also a feeling of having more to do

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of a laptop covered in multicoloured sticky notes against a red background
  • Wednesday, 25 February, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    The refreshing power of disagreement

    Right or wrong, dissent gives us permission to think for ourselves

    Tim Harford
    A line of ants walking in single file across a bright yellow background
  • Wednesday, 18 February, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    The link between material and moral flourishing is real

    Two decades after he wrote it, an economics professor’s thesis is still one of this century’s most prescient

    Tim Harford
    A stylised chart on a grid forming a downward curve beneath a frowning face.
  • Wednesday, 11 February, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    Ping! The WhatsApps that should have been an email

    If your instant message requires immediate attention, fine. But many don’t — they’re just inconsiderate

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of a red heart and envelope flanked by purple flowers, wrapped in a ribbon reading “I Love My Email”.
  • Wednesday, 4 February, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    The tyranny of targets

    Not only is quantification changing our behaviour, but we’re failing to notice this has happened

    Tim Harford
    Illustration showing four sports balls in a row but square-shaped — an American football, basketball, tennis ball and football
  • Wednesday, 28 January, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    The end of the world as we know it (but I feel fine) 

    There’s a curious gap between our personal optimism and our gloominess about others

    Tim Harford
    An illustration shows one figure feeding a pencil into another figure’s open mouth
  • Wednesday, 21 January, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    The paradox of work

    Why it brings misery into our lives — but also meaning

    Tim Harford
  • Saturday, 17 January, 2026
    Technology
    FT Magazine. Without my fitness tracker I’d never have run so far. Or behaved so weirdly

    The marathon, the algorithm and me

    Illustration of a runner falling amid floating smartwatches against a geometric red background.
  • Wednesday, 14 January, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    When psychologists mislead us

    From Piltdown Man to the Stanford prison experiment, many famous scientific discoveries have been exposed as hoaxes or distortions

    Tim Harford
    Cartoon illustration of 25 hardback text books which have been arranged into a precarious-looking pyramid
  • Wednesday, 7 January, 2026
    Behavioural economics
    How British queues got out of hand

    We were a nation that didn’t mind waiting in line. But this is ridiculous

    Tim Harford
    An illustration of a hand taking a  ticket from a “take-a-number”-style queueing ticket machine. The ticket reads “your turn” and is followed by a ludicrously long number.
  • Wednesday, 24 December, 2025
    Behavioural economics
    Why self-improvement starts with maintenance

    Whether you’re talking about armies, motorcycles or teeth, the same rule applies — what you care for will endure

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of a wrench gripping a red heart-shaped bolt head.
  • Thursday, 18 December, 2025
    Behavioural economics
    From colonising Mars to measuring with Mars Bars — addressing your wilder monetary queries

    In the latest of his Christmas columns, the FT’s Undercover Economist fields some of your most outlandish proposals, and concludes that there is no such thing as a stupid question

    Tim Harford
    An illustrated gold-wrapped Mars chocolate bar shown against a blue background
  • Thursday, 11 December, 2025
    Behavioural economics
    The economics of seasonal serenity

    Management scholars are making a case study of Christmas

    Tim Harford
    A stylised chart showing an upward trend, represented by a strand of multicoloured bulbs along the plotted line
  • Thursday, 27 November, 2025
    Behavioural economics
    Santa Claus is still a woman

    There is something particularly stubborn about gender roles at Christmas

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of gift boxes overflowing from an open purse against a green background
  • Thursday, 20 November, 2025
    Behavioural economics
    Don’t trade where you tweet

    Online conversations about hot meme stocks or cryptocurrencies are the source of some very bad decisions

    Tim Harford
    Surreal artwork depicting soft, melting Bitcoin tokens hanging from a branch and abstract forms, echoing Dalí’s style.
  • Thursday, 13 November, 2025
    Populism
    Why populism became popular

    It appeals more to a way of thinking than to a set of ideas — but is it just wrong?

    Tim Harford
    Illustration of a winding blue road sign with multiple arrows on a red background
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